Sawant pushes anti-caste discrimination law in Seattle

District 3 City Councilmember Kshama Sawant is seeking to add caste discrimination as a form of prejudice outlawed in Seattle workplaces, adding to a list that includes gender, age, race and sexual orientation.

“Caste discrimination doesn’t only take place in other countries. It is faced by South Asian American and other immigrant working people in their workplaces, including in the tech sector, in Seattle and in cities around the country,” Sawant, a socialist who recently announced she will leave the council when her term expires at the end of the year, said Tuesday at a news conference.

Caste is a hereditary hierarchical class system in India, which restricts what’s considered lower groups from socializing with higher groups, and limits which professional, educational and economic opportunities one has access to.

While the U.S. has never formally recognized the caste system, Sawant, the city’s only Indian American council member, says the policy protects those of South Asian descent from discrimination by those who do. 

“That’s why my office is proud to bring forward first-in-the-nation legislation for our city to ban caste-based discrimination, in solidarity with our South Asian and other immigrant community members, and all working people,” she added.

Under the city’s current discrimination law, someone who faced harassment or mistreatment based on caste would not be protected, while someone who faced gender, race or age discrimination would be.

Well over 150,000 South Asians live in Washington, and are particularly prominent in the tech and hospitality industries, where Sawant and others say caste-based discrimination is rampant, but unaddressed.

“The fight for this legislation is also linked to the larger working-class fight against the ongoing brutal layoffs in the tech sector,” Sawant said Tuesday.

In 2022, the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing won an appellate court ruling allowing it to proceed with a lawsuit against Cisco Systems, where an engineer was allegedly actively denied professional opportunities, a raise and promotions because of his caste background.

The Alphabet Workers Union — which represents employees of Google’s parent company — has signed on to support Sawant’s ordinance, according to the council member.

While representatives for the union did not respond to requests for comment Tuesday, the union has issued statements condemning casteism in tech and at Alphabet in the past, including a 2021 statement endorsing the Cisco lawsuit. 

“Caste-oppressed workers face many barriers throughout the tech industry, including at Alphabet,” the statement reads. “Caste is a system of oppression analogous to racial discrimination and is rampant throughout many American institutions. We support tech workers around the world who are speaking up about casteism and hostile workplaces.”

Efforts to curb caste discrimination in the U.S. have grown slowly in recent years, with Brandeis University prohibiting discrimination or harassment based on caste in 2019, and the University of California system — the largest state school system in the country — adding caste to its discrimination protection policy in 2022.

Others in academia, including professors from Harvard University and the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, wrote to the council in support of Sawant’s proposal within hours of its announcement.

The NAACP and Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance have also issued statements opposing the caste system in the U.S.

If the ordinance is adopted in Seattle, Sawant says she hopes the policy will result in similar action in other domestic cities, and help workers in India and other countries hold U.S.-based employers accountable for caste-based discrimination.

“As socialist, as Marxist, we are opposed to all oppression. We want to end all oppression and we believe that can happen only through actually ending capitalism itself and ushering in a socialist system,” Sawant said, noting that the fight is not just “brown people fighting brown people.”

“But today’s unity also shows that we’re not demanding that everybody agree with us on that exact framework,” she added. “If we agree that oppression and discrimination is bad, then we absolutely can and should fight together.”

The ordinance — likely to be voted on by council in late February — would broaden the list of protected groups to include caste, and would make Seattle the first city in the U.S. to create such a policy.

A similar policy expanding city policy to prohibit discrimination based on someone’s pregnancy status or the outcome of a pregnancy was passed by the council last summer to protect people seeking abortion in the city.